Pulling out all the stops
Landhof Bobitz e.G. is located in the far north of Germany, just a few kilometres from the Baltic Sea coast. The farm is diversified, with arable farming and dairy cattle farming as its main pillars. terraHORSCH spoke with farm manager Otto Rogall.
Today, the conditions are still affected by the collectivisation of agriculture during the GDR era. “Our farm originally was an Agricultural Producers’ Co-operative,” CEO Otto Rogall explains. "After the reunification in 1991, it became a registered co-operative. We have around 60 shareholders. Some of them have no connection to agriculture at all, while others are even employed at the farm. We farm around 2,400 hectares including grassland. The farm originally covered 5,000 hectares. The lease market here is under considerable pressure which affects prices. We have various models, some of which are linked to the wheat price. But in any case, you have to do something for your landlords. Our dairy farm with around 400 cows was managed separately during the GDR era, but we took it over when the new co-operation was founded. For a farm with our amount of land cannot function well without livestock. Our starting conditions were unfavourable: our debts amounted to €3 million, but they have now been paid off in full."
Otto Rogall has been working at Landhof Bobitz as head of arable farming since 2017. Prior to that, he completed a master's degree in Göttingen and worked at two other large farms as head of arable farming and assistant to the management. After his predecessor here retired, Otto Rogall was promoted to farm manager.
Efficiency required
“Our main crops are rapeseed, wheat, barley, maize and sugar beet,” Otto Rogall states. "The soils are very varying: on average 55 soil points, with the lighter ones only having 15 to 20 and the better ones 65 to 68. There are also clayey fields. They are absolutely minute soils, and this requires good planning and enough efficiency. The crop rotation is rapeseed, wheat, barley, with maize and beet sometimes being added in between.
It is difficult to deal with political guidelines. There is no planning security. We did not go along with the legume issue. We would have had to cultivate over 250 hectares of them from scratch. But that was too uncertain for us as we have only little experience with legumes. All in all, I would like to see a clear direction here. We farmers are used to constantly adapting to new things. But this is simply too much uncertainty! Or let's take the issue of fallow land. We have always had good experiences with ploughing at the end of November before sugar beet. In spring, the black soil had dried out so much that we only had to scrape it off and we could see the beet. But now 65% of our land is in the red zone where we have to plant cover crops over the winter. On top of that, there are drinking water protection areas where glyphosate is banned. It is almost impossible to get rid of the cover crop properly there, especially as the mild winters mean that hardly anything freezes off anymore. And when I plough in spring, I just take the moisture to the surface ..."
Plant protection as a success factor
At Landhof Bobitz, the agricultural year begins with spreading fertiliser. This is followed by the first plant protection measures against black grass in wheat and barley. “The sprayer is one of our key machines,” Otto Rogall explains. "Plant protection determines whether we are economically successful or not. Since this year, we have been using a new machine. We traded in our self-propelled sprayer HORSCH Leeb PT 230 and the trailed sprayer GS 8000 and purchased a new HORSCH Leeb 12 TD with pulse system. This doesn't necessarily make us more efficient, but it helps to compensate for the labour shortage.
Our only sprayer driver retired which means that the work now has to be done by one person. However, driving the sprayer is his great passion and he tries to break his own hectare records every day. His next goal is to cover 450 hectares in one go. This is not easy as we use 160 to 200 litres of water because of the blackgrass. Logistics, thus, have to be well planned. An old milk tanker is always at hand to transfer the water on the headlands. The driver decides about his own working hours according to requirements. To avoid drift caused by the wind, he often works at night. Changing the tramlines from 30 to 36 metres provided us with additional efficiency. The sprayer is used in combination with a John Deere 7R. Even though the sprayer is attached more than 80% of the time, this gives us a little more flexibility than a self-propelled machine. In the first three months, we have already covered 5,200 hectares with the sprayer-tractor combination."
The next step is to incorporate the catch crops. The tool of choice is a HORSCH Joker 8 RT. Plough furrows are levelled with the Tiger 6 XL. At the same time, the first cut is already carried out in the grassland. The maize fields are prepared with the 3-bar Tiger 6 LT. The farm manager would like to go a little deeper than just under 30 cm, but the tractor lacks the power to do so. However, going too deep would not make sense because of the wet conditions. Maize seeding itself is carried out with two Maestros by the contractor Otto Hamester.
Drier and drier
“In preparation, we try to carry out stubble cultivation at least twice,” Otto Rogall says. "The first time is immediately after the harvest with the HORSCH Tiger 6 XL or a cultivator with a knife roller. The latter is used to cut harvest residues after rapeseed or maize. I like to work on stubble with tines. After the harvest, we have to add some moisture. In the first pass, we therefore work at a depth of 4 to 5 cm rather than 1 to 2 cm. We do this at least twice, going deeper each time. Rapeseed stubble is an exception. In this case, the Joker is unbeatable because it can work very shallowly to ensure optimal emergence of the rapeseed. However, this requires a skilled driver who can adjust it thoroughly. For rapeseed cultivation, we use the narrow 40 mm chisel points because we really want to go down as deep as 30 to 32 cm. For wheat, we work more shallowly: 10 to 15 cm. Before that, however, we already carried out a deep working pass at 20 to 25 cm. The Tiger XL is the ideal machine to do so. All our cultivators are equipped with the large tyre packer. But because of the dry conditions of recent years, we reach our limits."
Seeding is carried out with a Pronto 7 DC built in 2013. It will soon be replaced by the same model. But not because it is worn: the new machine has a double hopper system so that fertiliser can be applied while sowing.
Different systems
“I took a look at various systems on a trip to Great Britain organised by HORSCH,” Otto Rogall remembers. "For we do not yet 100% agree on how we want to proceed strategically. Should we stick with the Pronto? Would 9 m make more sense? Or even the offset method – 12 m with the Serto? For agricultural reasons, and here above all because of the soil conditions, we rarely manage to drill directly after primary soil cultivation anyway. But we also have heavy soils where we need the power harrow. 9 m would actually be possible with a tractive output of 400 hp. However, our terrain is hilly, and I actually want to drive uphill and downhill at the same speed. But I don't want to push efficiency too far. Theory and practice are two different things. Sometimes we drill 90 hectares of rapeseed a day, sometimes only 35. The average is around 60 hectares. We always try to get to the field at 7 a.m. But at 8 p.m. we call it a day. After that time, we won't achieve much. And our employees have families too, after all. Compared to other regions, we usually start quite early. This year, we began sowing rapeseed on 7th August, otherwise it usually is 15th August. The cabbage-stem flea beetle is the reason why we want good early growth so that the plants can grow away. This year, we completed seeding in ten days. It worked very well. The weather was ideal. Our principle is: if it is so dry that you cannot see the seed drill behind the tractor, we'll have a good harvest. We started sowing barley quite early on 11th September and also completed seeding in ten days. One employee carries out the primary soil cultivation with a John Deere 8400. For this task, we always use twin tyres as we do for seeding.
Problem: cabbage-stem flea beetles
After this digression to autumn, let's continue with the rest of the year. Plant protection measures are carried out repeatedly as required. Mowing is done twice, sometimes three times. “We co-operate closely with the official plant protection service,” the farm manager explains. “The worst thing for us is the cabbage-stem flea beetle in autumn. In spring, on the other hand, insects hardly affect our yield. Often, headland measures are sufficient. As we do not want to drive through the blossoms, we are increasingly relying on Sclerotinia-resistant varieties. The experiences we gathered in this respect are very good.”
The farm has two combine harvesters of its own for the harvest season. If need be, the land could also be managed with one, but then the farm would have to have its own drying facilities, and the transport chain would have to be perfectly planned. However, there is no auger wagon; transport is carried out with trailers and, in some cases, even with two-axle trailers from the GDR era. When harvesting, Otto Rogall attaches great importance to short stubble as this makes the following tasks much easier.
The next step is primary soil cultivation. “We still plough for barley, as we haven't yet found an alternative that makes sense in our opinion and experience. Even if it requires a lot of time, manpower and energy. With the Tiger, we can manage about 50 hectares a day. With our two ploughs, we're happy if we can manage a total of 40 hectares.”
Dairy cattle farming
Dairy cattle farming is an important branch of the farm, especially since prices have been reasonably stable in recent years, in contrast to market crops. In 2011, a new cubicle barn with a milking house and a 32-stall rotary milking parlour went into operation for the 400 cows. The offspring is raised in older stables which have been fitted with new stalls. The calf stable dates from 2017. The fodder situation is good, especially as there is a co-operation with an organic farmer who supplies alfalfa and clover grass.
“There is still potential in this sector,” Otto Rogall says. “In arable farming, on the other hand, it is more difficult. This also applies to the harvests. We managed to get the blackgrass under control in the barley field with plant protection measures, but this cost us yield. The poor prices add to this problem. It's going to be a tight year!”
Effort is rising
At Landhof Bobitz, wheat yields amount to 85 to 90 dt/h, and barley yields are similar. “We would like to see a four as the first digit of the rapeseed yield,” the farm manager points out. "But the flea beetle makes it difficult. The last two years, yields were only 20 dt at the end of the year, compared to 35 to 38 dt before that. All in all, it is getting more difficult. But we are making changes: we only used a power harrow for 10% of the seeding measures and, thus, are trying to achieve yields that way. Plant protection involves a lot of effort and costs. We used to have two to three measures in autumn, this year we are already at five. This is a disaster, especially for rapeseed. We do have a research institute that advocates the use of a sensible seed dressing, but once again, politicians are blocking it. I don't understand why this isn't being handled more flexibly in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, the rapeseed region. For as things stand at the moment, we would actually have to stop growing rapeseed."